


Hands Down

by shortystylee



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 19:39:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6821455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortystylee/pseuds/shortystylee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey can handle parents, she’s not sure if she can handle being alone in Ben's room, nothing else to look at aside from her boring government book, his ridiculously soft-looking hair, adorable big ears, and his stupid, stupid attractive face.</p><p>In which Rey & Ben are group partners, and she accidentally finds out some of his musical preferences that he prefers to hide. Fluff, just fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hands Down

**Author's Note:**

> A little piece of high school fluff that I feverishly typed out yesterday after seeing a tumblr post. First time I've done anything for Star Wars, hopefully it's not horribly OOC.

They were trying to study. _Trying_ being the operative word.

 

He was sitting with Rey at the kitchen table at his house, their comparative government books and other handouts scattered across the table. Rey didn’t seem to mind the questions that his mother asked every so often, answering each politely and then getting right back to their project. But his dad, his dad was a different story. He’d already made some comment before Rey got there, something about, it’s high time you brought a girl home. _It’s a class project, Dad, not a date. If I_ was _on a date with Rey, I sure as hell wouldn’t bring her here, to sit at the kitchen table and get bugged by both of you_.  Leia was washing up some dishes, multi-tasking and working on dinner at the same time, but Han was just standing there, leaning against the counting, going back and forth between drying the dishes that Leia shoved at him, stealing bits of food from her cutting board… and making this face at him and then nodding obviously at Rey. She was at the opposite side of the table, unable to see the looks his father gave him from behind her.

 

Ben stood up abruptly, and she flinched a bit, startled at the sudden movement. He began to grab all their class material in his arms. “Come on, Rey. We’ll go study in my room, it’ll be less distracting.”

 

He shoots an angry look at his dad, only to see a very satisfied look on his face. _Shit. And now we’re going to my room. Alone. Great, Dad thinks he’s won now. Whatever_. Ben thinks he can handle being alone with Rey in his room, he _knows_ he can’t handle his parents.

 

* * *

 

 

She has to practically run up the stairs behind him as he takes them two steps at a time. A part of her wishes that they could’ve stayed at the kitchen table. Leia’s questions aren’t bad and while she knows the looks that Han is giving Ben behind her back, the kitchen is safe. She can handle parents, she’s not sure if she can handle being alone in Ben's room, nothing else to look at aside from her boring government book, his ridiculously soft-looking hair, adorable big ears, and his stupid, stupid attractive face. _Maker, give me strength_. So yea, maybe there were some ulterior motives for why she asked if he’d be her partner for their group project. She’d rationalized that none of her friends were in the class, so she might as well ask Ben. The only people she ever saw him with, Hux and… _Phasma, was it?_ They also weren’t in their class, so it made perfect sense.

 

The first thing she notices is the “KEEP OUT” sign on the outside of his door, and she stops herself from snickering because it’s the same type of sign you’d buy at the hardware store, right next to the ones that said “BEWARE OF DOG” and “GARAGE SALE.” He opens the door and the second thing she notices is that his room is _covered_ in posters, like wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling… and even a few on the ceiling. She couldn’t hazard a guess at the color of the paint on his walls if she tried. There’s a completely filled bookshelf to the right of the door, an IKEA desk against one wall, with a very complicated looking desktop with three monitors – _who the fuck needs three monitors_ , she thinks – and a double bed with a dark blue comforter pushed into the corner opposite the door.

 

He makes a beeline for the bed, spreads out their work just like it was on the kitchen table, and sits cross-legged on it, mumbling something about getting back to work. As much as being anywhere even remotely _near_ a bed with Ben Solo is some sordid teenage fantasy of hers, she can’t seem to tear herself away from all there is to look at on his walls, and she thinks this might be the first step in actually getting to know what he likes. _Sure, I could just ask him, but what’s the sense in that?_

“You gonna come work on the project? I’m not doing all the work, you know.”

 

“…there’s so much in here,” she replies, craning her neck around. “You need to wait. I’m gonna need to look at everything.”

 

He sighs. “Fine. Knock yourself out.”

 

Rey starts her walk slowly around the edges of his room, looking at all the posters, photos, and concert ticket stubs he’s got tacked on his walls. It’s an interesting mixture, but not one that surprises her too much. On closer inspection, it’s not all music posters like she thought at first glance. Nine Inch Nails, Coheed & Cambria, Tool. The Crow, Pulp Fiction, Fear & Loathing. Thursday, Alexisonfire, Glassjaw. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Full Metal Jacket, A Clockwork Orange. There’s a smile tugging at her lips when she sees the trio of Kubrick film posters, because he’s her _absolute_ favorite and she suddenly doesn’t give a shit about their project and Old Republic politics, she wants to know what he thinks about Spartacus. She’s a little bit disappointed that there’s no poster for The Shining, and she wonders if he’s ever seen Dr Strangelove… or Lolita… _I’m sure as hell not bringing up Eyes Wide Shut_ , she thinks, trying not to blush.

 

She stops in front of a large vintage-looking Black Sabbath poster, with well-worn edges. One has pulled away from the thumb-tack that had held it down, and she sees there is something behind it.

 

“What do you think you’re you doing?” There’s a sharp edge to his voice that she’s heard him use in the past, mostly in class or in passing when someone asks him a ridiculous question.

 

“There’s another poster under this one and I just want to see what it is,” she answers as she takes out the other bottom thumb-tack. The Black Sabbath posters curls up automatically, Ozzy Osbourne and friends disappearing to reveal…

 

“…Dashboard Confessional?” Rey asks. “You’ve got a Dashboard Confessional poster, hidden, of all places, behind a Black Sabbath poster? What would Ozzy think?”

 

“So? What’s your point? It’s not like I’m into them anymore.” He’s pushed the books out of the way and is perched at the edge of his bed now. He’s… too defensive about this.

 

“You are too,” she laughs, pointing a finger at him. “It’s cool if you are, you don’t need to lie to me about it.” She leans back against the bookshelf and studies him.

 

Before she knows it, he’s pushed himself off the bed and crossed the room to her, only needing barely two long strides to do it. There’s not a foot of space between them, his grey-socked feet just grazing her bare feet, and when she cranes her head up, he’s there, looking down at her. “I do _not_ still listen to Dashboard,” he says between gritted teeth. He’s a little annoyed, she can tell, but she’s more focused now on his proximity, the ten or so freckles smattered across his pale skin, and the way his hair is falling into his face as he looks at her.

 

“You can’t lie to me, Ben Solo. I know you secretly love them,” she says, crossing her arms, looking up at him, challenging him. “Now… how did that one song go… hah! I remember now…” She pauses just briefly and begins to belt out the lyrics she can remember. “Your hair, it’s everywhere, screaming infidelities…” she hums the last part, having forgotten the lyrics, but she reaches up and ruffles a hand through his hair along with the words she does recall.

 

She’s off-key, and she knows she sounds horrible, singing was never her strong point, but she’s so close to him right now. So, so close. Too close to care how bad she sounds. That annoyed look has slowly fallen off his face, replaced with confusion, and a slight hint of what she would dare to call expectation. _Fuck it_. She reaches out, grabbing his hands and placing them on her hips, and she feels his fingers grab into her as she begins to dance, just silly, trying to make him not so serious for once.

 

It’s been years since she’s heard their songs, but Rey remembers more of the words, starting to sing again. “Well, as for now I'm gonna hear the saddest songs, and sit alone and wonder, how you're making out… But as for me, I wish that I was anywhere with anyone…” She looks up at him as her voice trails off, not wanting to finish the last part of that verse.

_Making out._

 

Her hands have found their way pressed against his chest and she’s pushing herself up on her toes, offering this to him, and _please, please, please, want this too_ , she thinks. Rey gasps when his hands fly off her hips, and she stumbles backwards, caught by the bookcase. Her eyes open in time to see a flash of black hoodie as the door to his room slams shut and she hears him stomp down the stairs.

 

_Well, that’s… not what I expected._

 

She was sure he was going to kiss her, just sure of it. And what surprises her most, is that despite him storming off like that, she still wants him to kiss her. _Crap, he probably thought I was joking around, or playing along with the song lyrics_. She knows for sure she’s never seen him at a school dance, or walking the halls with a girl who’s not Phasma, and she’s certain she would’ve heard the gossip if he was dating someone. When her heartbeat finally slows down from the quick change of events, she grabs her book from his bed, noticing his cell phone lying on top of a pile of handouts about the Old Republic Senate elections. Without thinking, she picks it up, accidentally swiping the screen and unlocking it. _What kind of 17 year old boy doesn’t have a password?_ , she thinks.

 

…and then, she gets an idea.

 

* * *

 

 

She’s not there when he comes back up to his room about thirty minutes later. _Did you think she was still going to be here? You absolute fucking idiot. The first girl you get in your room, one you actually like, and she wants you to kiss her… and what do you do?_

 

“I storm out like a goddamn child,” he says, though there’s no one in his room to hear him.

 

Ben isn’t exactly sure when Rey showed up on his radar, no pun intended. He thinks it’s sometime in 9th grade, if he really tries to remember. No, that’s not true. He can definitely remember now. She’d transferred from some other school, in Jakku, that hellhole of a desert town five or six states southwest of here, and he remembers because even though it was a very mild April day, she’d appeared in his fourth hour home economics class in a large down winter coat with a furry hood. It had dwarfed her small frame, hem falling down by her knees. He does still wear a hoodie in the summer, so he can’t say _too_ much. There’s an empty desk next to him and she sits, taking off the coat so it hangs over the back of the chair, revealing leggings and a comically large sweater underneath. She leans over to introduce herself when their teacher says they’re working in pairs today, and all he could think about then were the freckles across her tanned skin, the way her sweater fell off her shoulder when she leaned over the aisle between their desks, and the Kill Bill sirens blaring in his head, because, fuck, he’s 14 years old and has absolutely no idea what to say to a girl this pretty.

 

He ignores her the next day in class, ever thankful that the seat assignments are still organized alphabetically so she’s two rows ahead of him. He ignores her, but there’s no way he can’t _notice_ her, especially not now that he’s got this image seared in his brain of her dancing around his room, the three little buns she wears her hair in bouncing around, and that he knows what she looks like when she goes on her tip-toes, when her neck cranes up and her eyes flutter shut, and that he still is thinking about the sharpness of her hipbones under his fingertips yesterday. She raises her hand five minutes before class ends, asking to be excused to use the restroom, and the teacher dismisses her grudgingly, being that it’s the last class of the day. _Nope, definitely ignoring her_.

 

Ben dawdles to his locker after class, he lives close enough to walk to school and never felt the need to battle the crowds of students rushing to get to their lockers and outside before the busses leave. The first thing he notices is that there’s a note taped to the outside of his locker. Not folded up, or shoved through the little vents like he knows people do, but open for the world to read and taped at a height far below his eye level, so he had to bend down to read it. The handwriting is downright appalling, but it’s the words he’s most interested in.

 

 _My heart is yours to fill or burst,_  
_to break or bury,_  
_or wear as jewelry,_  
_whichever you prefer…_

 

He only has enough time to barely read the note before his phone is ringing, playing the same lyrics. Now he’s just confused. His ringtone for everyone is the 2001: A Space Odyssey theme song. When he gets it out of his pocket, Rey’s name is across the top of the screen, accompanied by a selfie of her in his room, standing in front of his Full Metal Jacket poster, and the damned thing is _still_ playing Hands Down… and that’s when he remembers he’d left his phone in his bedroom during his tantrum yesterday.

 

He hears her say his name before he has a chance to answer it, and when he looks up she’s only about twenty feet down the hallway and walking towards him.

 

“What is all this supposed to mean?” he asks, gesturing to his locker and phone, when she gets close enough that he doesn’t need to yell.

 

“It’s not obvious enough for you?” She’s about five lockers down from him, and she takes one step closer when she asks.

 

“No, it’s not.”

 

Rey is nothing if not blunt when she answers. “I wanted you to kiss me yesterday. Why didn’t you?” Another step closer.

 

“How was I supposed to know you weren’t just fucking with me? That you weren’t pretending.” He shakes his head and opens his locker, the door swinging open so Rey can see his class schedule and a Led Zeppelin sticker inside.

 

She takes two more steps now, closing the gap between them and leaning up against the locker next to his, effectively blocking access to his. “I don’t get that close to people I don’t want kissing me,” she says, flicking her eyes down at her white Converse then back up to him.

 

“You’re that close to me again.”

 

“Better not disappoint me this time, Ben.” He hears the way she say his name and he’s done for. He’s got his right hand just to the side of her face, palm flat against the lockers, and his left goes to her hip again, of its own accord this time. She’s admittedly nervous now. She’s got enough confidence for the both of them and she can talk a big game, but she’s never actually done this before.

 

He leans in closer, pressing an absolutely chaste kiss to her lips, giving her an out, as if she isn’t here pressed against a locker by her own volition, as if she isn’t the one who sought him out today. He pulls away not half an inch and she follows him, pressing her lips back to his, and that’s when his hand leaves the lockers, landing at the back of her neck to tangle in her hair, as he quickly leaves chaste behind. She wonders who taught him all this, deciding she’d thank them if she had the chance. Just when she thinks she’s getting the hang of things, throwing both arms lazily over his shoulders, he ups his game, pulling back slightly to nip at her bottom lip. She can feel him grin against her lips, and then she gasps when she feels his tongue run along her lip where he’d just bitten and –

 

“Break it up, you two! Any more of that and you’ll both be in detention.” They jump apart and look down the hall to see their principal standing not fifteen feet away, wearing her normal white pantsuit and looking positively annoyed.

 

“Sorry, Miss Mothma,” they say in unison, then watch silently as she turns on her heel and heads down the hallway that leads to the administration offices.

 

When Ben’s absolutely certain their principal is long out of earshot, he speaks up. “Say, Rey… you drive to school, don’t you?” She nods and he grabs what he needed from his locker, stuffing the folders in his backpack and then throwing it over his left shoulder. “Did you, um… wanna continue this in your car?” He’s blushing ear to ear and Rey wishes she could pull out her phone and take a picture without him noticing.

 

She laces her hand in his in response. “Yes… yes, I do,” she answers. “But on the way there, you’re gonna explain why you’ve got all these Kubrick posters on your wall and not one for Dr. Strangelove.”

 

He smiles at that, before diving into his reply, and to see that smile alone cross his face makes Rey decide that this was all definitely worth it.


End file.
